July 19, 2019

  • Forgotten Voices: The Music of Gabriele Dupont

     

    Gabriele Dupont: Complete Symphonic Works
    Royal Liege Philharmonic Orch./Patrick Davin
    Fuga Libra 751
    Total Time:  57:58
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    For even the most talented of composers, life can sometimes grasp away success for any number of reasons sending them into the dustbins of history.  Rediscovering some of this music is often a wonderful way to expand one’s understanding of music and sometimes add a new favorite to music from a specific period of time.  Nothing is more true than the variety of composers who were creating at the beginning of the 20th Century.  Caught between the end of Romanticism and the many new shifts in Modernism, individual voices struggled to find their way.  Gabriele Dupont (1878 – 1914) can be numbered among the composers whose music has been largely forgotten.  He was a student of Massenet and so would follow along the trajectory of composers such as Vierne and Widor, the Grand French Romantic tradition.  His music was also influenced by Italian verismo which informs his first successful work, La Cabrera which won first prize in the Sonzogno competition in 1904.  Four more operas, and a host of pieces would follow.  Unfortunately, Dupont contracted tuberculosis in 1901 which would have a significant impact on his abilities, though he did manage to receive a “second prize” for a work he entered for the coveted Prix de Rome.  His death in August, 1914, was overshadowed by WWI and went unnoticed.  As one might suspect, his chamber music and piano pieces were among the first of his works to begin to appear on programs.  The three pieces on this new release, recorded last September, are the extent of his symphonic work, composed in the first decade of the new century, and receive their premiere recordings here.

    One of the many hallmarks of the early 20th Century is the exploration of the expanded orchestra through new arrangements of piano and other music.  The first work here, Les Heures dolentes, is just such a creation derived from a piano cycle composed between 1903-1905.   Dupont orchestrated four of the fourteen pieces which were subsequently performed in 1906 by a concert organized by Edouard Colonne.  The music explores the inner struggle of death and illness, something a bit darker than the Impressionists might consider.  After a slightly dark romantic opening, the music soon shifts to a somewhat Impressionistic style with harp and muted strings in crystalline textures.  The thematic thread has a sense of melancholy about it and the lower regions of the orchestra respond to it with a sense of darkness trying to squash the hope.  The melodic line sometimes has the shape of Puccini.  One can hear how Dupont’s style is a new melding of the likes of Debussy and even Chabrier and Charpentier.  Modern listeners will find his style has an almost film-like narrative quality.  Dupont though explores the darker realms of the orchestra as he moves his thematic threads through unique colors.  The second movement, Des enfants jouent dans le jardin, is a delightful piece with orchestration reminiscent of Chabrier.  This is a more brilliant orchestral style, no less dramatic.  The third movement is a little less engaging.  It serves as a relaxation though before the heavily dramatic finale which ebbs away.  While the themes of the work may not standout memorably, the journey is certainly well worth the effort.

    The designation poeme symphonique gives us a clue to the philosophy and musical aesthetic Dupont is exploring in Jour d’ete (1899).  This early work is constructed in three movements and is in a more Romantic style a la Massenet or Chabrier, the latter’s joyful style seems to burst through in the opening bars especially.  Here is some really remarkable writing for winds and an assured command of brass and string writing as well.  The piece is filled with a sense of joy and energy.  It is most likely that the piece is the best example of the composer’s own unique style.  The music is actually quite engaging and invites the listener through a slight program which certainly is influenced by Impressionism, but the music does not explore that aesthetic.  It also seems to avoid more Wagnerian excesses harmonically being a decidedly perfect example of turn of the century French orchestral music.  The central movement has a is part of the musical settings of the outdoors.  Finally, we move into a movement with the title “Nocturne”, but this is again not of the Impressionist style, though the orchestration sometimes seems to hint at it a bit.  It is more a depiction of nighttime frolics.

    Edouard Colonne commissioned Le Chant de la Destine (1907) shortly after the success of the piano transcription work that opened this disc.  A more episodic piece, one also hears Dupont taking a look at the approaches of Strauss and Liszt with his application of leitmotivs as one unifying factor.  As such, the music has a more Germanic quality, reminiscent perhaps of Franck.  It is another great representation of a composer exploring his technique on the way to a mature style, one which unfortunately never had a chance to develop due to his untimely death.  No less than Edgar Varese though felt this was an important work, programming it several times in concert including upon his debut with the New Symphony Orchestra of New York in 1919.  Upon its premiere, Dupont’s work was part of a program that featured Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole and the Grieg piano concerto.  It certainly would have been a contrast that would hold its own against two pieces which would become standard repertoire works.  Perhaps on a deeper level, the work’s inner struggle is also that of its composer attempting to grow through the changing musical milieu towards works that would garner both critical acclaim and audience appreciation.

    The Liege orchestra certainly creates committed performances of these pieces.  No doubt this is aided by the many ways Dupont’s music features beautiful solo writing and moves almost cinematically through its narratives.  The shifts in tone from Impressionistic to Romantic qualities are handled well here as the ensemble must get a sense of the many swirls of styles that are swirling about these pieces as Dupont’s own style emerges.  Sometimes the music of Resphigi comes to mind as the pieces move along, though here it is the way the music is orchestrated that provides the difference.  There is just so much to explore in Dupont’s orchestral writing that makes this an important release.  The performances are engaging and draw the listener in to this rare music that hopefully will now begin to see the light of day.